


Liberatae

by ThatSlyDevlin



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 02:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2133678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatSlyDevlin/pseuds/ThatSlyDevlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An amnesiac named Marcus Theon wakes up in a prison cell in 18th century New York City, arrested for crimes he never remembers committing. After being interrogated by a General of the Continental Army, Marcus realizes there may be much more to his past life than what he'd imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liberatae

Sudden, sharp pain. Like a lightning bolt, it spread through his side and caused his eyelids to snap open. His hands rushed to the source and clutched it as he cried out.

"About time you woke up," a voice jeered. "Thought I'd have to kick you again."

As the pain began to subside, he could slowly distinguish his surroundings. He lied face up on a cold, stone floor. From what he could tell, the entire room was stone. A faint light caught his attention to his right, but a large shadow blocked most of it out. The figure of large man stood before him.

"Stop your blubberin' and get up," the man commanded. There was a metal clank against the floor. "Here's what's left of supper. Eat up, skinny weaklings like you need what they can get." The prisoner managed to turn his head and see that a dish, containing some kind of unrecognizable sloppy food, was on the floor in between the two of the them.

The man shifted on his feet and turned around. He walked away and fiddled with what sounded like a key ring. Metal screeched, then stopped, the man walked further away and the metal screeched again with a final click when it reached the original position. As the prisoner’s eyes slowly traveled up, he saw the source of the noise.

Iron bars. He was in a prison cell.

Why is this happening to me? he wondered. I don’t remember being captured. I don’t even remember what I did to deserve imprisonment

Struggling to get on his feet, he managed to stand up. For some reason, there was a constant lingering sensation that he’d somehow been here and done all of this before. He ignored the metal pan and accidently kicked it aside, staggering towards the bars at the other end of the cell. Had anyone seen him walk, they would have sworn he was in a drunken stupor.

He finally reached the door and braced himself against the bars. He pressed his face close and saw the guard sitting in a wooden chair outside his cell, facing away. The hallway was dark, but he could spot several other cells across from him. He couldn’t tell if there were any prisoners.

“Guard,” he gasped.

He turned and appeared mildly surprised by his appearance. “What do you want?” he growled.

“Tell me… Where I am…” He panted for breath in between words.

“Are you daft? New York Central Prison. You’ve been put behind bars by order of the Continental Army for obstruction of justice and several other charges!”

“Continental… Army?”

The guard stood and faced the cell. He raised his hand and smacked the bars, nearly hitting the prisoner in the face. The prisoner managed to veer back and avoid being hit at the last second. Though his reflexes were good, he lost balance and hit the floor. His bottom ached with pain.

“Go back to sleep!” the guard spat. “You have to be presentable in the morning to meet one of the big-wigs from Philadelphia.”

The prisoner got up and staggered to the other end of the cell, spying a bed in the far-right hand corner. He flopped on to it and lay still for several minutes before closing his eyes. Hundreds of questions filled his mind. How had he gotten there? We're the charges against him true? What had he done to deserve such treatment?

His thoughts began to slow and exhaustion finally took him. His eyelids hovered low and, eventually, completely closed.

“Up and at ‘em, string bean.”

The prisoner awoke with a start. Sunlight streamed through the cell window. A man was aggressively shaking his shoulder. He was not the same person who had been sitting outside his cell the night before, but he wore the same dark, blue uniform. A different guard, probably the morning watch. The man had golden, blond hair and deep blue eyes. Something about him seemed to strike a note in the prisoner’s mind.

“About time you woke up,” he said. “You’re scheduled to meet the general at noon. I brought you some water to freshen up.” He motioned to a wooden pail at the prisoner’s bedside. “You’d best hurry, it’s nearly that time.”

He turned and exited the cell, locking the door behind him. The prisoner watched him until he was out of sight, not realizing until he was gone that his eyes had been trained on him nearly the entire time.

The prisoner shifted around on the mattress and put his feet on the floor. He pulled the pail closer to see his reflection in the water. His hair, though quite messy, was bright auburn colored. A long scar ran down his cheek, almost intersecting with his left eye. Bright green eyes stared back at him from the bottom of the container.

He dipped his hands in and cupped them, bringing water up to his face. The caked on dirt began to rinse off quickly. He repeated this process until his face was sufficiently clean. The water seemed to rejuvenate him slightly, but he still felt nauseated after a long rest.

The food pan from the previous night’s encounter still lay on the floor across from the bed. As if almost on cue, the prisoner’s stomach rumbled with hunger. He gathered the strength to stand and walked over to where it sat, picked it up, and studied its contents. It was filled with some kind of stew, barely managing to pick out small pieces of meat and vegetables. Lacking a utensil, he scraped what he could out of the pan with his fingers and ate it. It was cold and tasteless, but better than hunger pains.

As he finished the meal, the blue-eyed guard reappeared from around the corner and opened the cell door. A rifle was slung over his shoulder and he held a rope in one hand.

“Let’s make this easy on the both of us,” he said.

The guard approached and tied the rope tightly around the prisoner’s wrists. He quietly submitted, not knowing exactly how to respond or why it was deemed necessary that his hands needed to be bound in order to leave the cell.

He was escorted into the dimly lit hallway and was forced to turn left. The guard held his arm tightly above the rope and led him to a set of wooden stairs. They climbed in unison, the guard trailing slightly behind. The stairs emerged into a connecting hallway. In a positive contrast to the stone corridor below, the walls were made of plaster with several wooden doors on the right and a corresponding window for each on the left. Morning sunlight entering through the windows brightened the cyan colored walls. Clouds of dust wafted through the air, as if the place hadn’t been cleaned in months.

As the guard pushed him further down the hall, he looked out the windows to see a oceanside street, bustling with several workers, merchants, and carriages. Large ships were docked nearby where sailors loaded and unloaded cargo.

His escort noticed him peering out the window. “Itching for freedom?” he mused. “Don’t expect to get out anytime soon. General Lee seems to be very interested in your affairs. In fact, no one knows just how long he’ll be here for your interrogation.”

The man probably knows more about my situation than I do, the prisoner thought.

Near the end of the hallway, the guard stopped at one of the doors and knocked.

“State your business,” a voice behind the door grunted.

“Prisoner 227, here to meet the General.”

The person on the other sided inserted what the prisoner assumed to be a key into the door and the lock clicked. The floorboards on the other side moaned as the doorman stepped aside.

“Proceed.”

The guard turned the doorknob and pushed the door open, leading the prisoner inside. They stepped into a drawing room with a large map on the wall opposite of the door. Red and blue lines were scattered all across what the prisoner somehow knew to be the Chesapeake Bay area. A man studying the map was flanked by blue-clad soldiers carrying rifles.

At the sound of the door closing, he turned to see the prisoner and their eyes connected. The man had long brown hair, styled to resemble the soldiers’ powdered wigs. The hairline had receded to nearly the top of his forehead. His facial hair was scruffy and, unlike the men near him, he wore a long brown cloak with golden trim. A cavalry sword hung by his side and a single flintlock pistol at the other. He appeared to be in his early forties. His irises were a deep gray and seemed to bore through whatever they stared at.

When he spied the prisoner, a hint of a smirk appeared on his face.

“Marcus Theon,” he goaded, “a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

Lee circled around the table and strode towards Marcus. He inspected him as he walked, slowing to a leisurely pace.

“My name is General Charles Lee, but I’m sure you were already aware of that.”

Lee stopped in front of Marcus and looked him straight in the the eye. "And I've been very eager to meet you, Mr. Theon." He gestured towards the table. "Come, sit. Let's make this as painless as possible."

The doorman took Marcus from the guard who had escorted him to the room and forced him to sit down in a chair. Lee sat in the chair opposite of him and put his elbows on the table, leaning forward.

“Lieutenant Johnson, I’d like to talk to the prisoner in private.”

The soldiers in the room glanced at each other with confused, almost concerned faces. The Lieutenant, who had been the same man to seat Marcus, seemed to swallow a lump in his throat.

“Sir, are you certain?” the Lieutenant asked.

“I am more than capable of handling a single prisoner, who, in case you haven’t noticed, has his hands bound.”

“But sir, isn’t this the man who-”

Lee’s turned his head delivered a cold stare. “Are you defying a direct order, Lieutenant?”

“No, sir,” the Lieutenant conceded. He motioned towards the other men in the room. “In the hallway. Now.”

They abandoned their posts and moved towards the door, keeping watchful eyes on Marcus. They seemed greatly relieved, as if a thick tension had dissipated. When the last guard had left, Lee refocused his attention on Marcus.

“To business,” he said. “I will tell you in advance that there is no point in worming your way around this interrogation. Your execution is scheduled for tomorrow, and don’t expect your rag-tag band of ‘freedom-fighters’ to come to the rescue before you hang.”

Lee’s words were drenched with malice. He continued on without letting up.

“I’ve made sure that every possible entrance or exit to the public square is covered by my personal soldiers. Primary and secondary checkpoints will be established at every street. I will have eyes on every single rooftop for a fifty meter radius. If some part of you believes that you have any hope of living tomorrow after noon, it will die with you. So answer my questions carefully, because it is utterly pointless to resist.” He stopped and breathed in, letting the airflow calm him.

“Tell me, Marcus, where exactly is your base of operations?”

In that moment, Marcus froze. Base of operations? Freedom-fighters? He knew nothing about the situation other than that he woke up in a prison cell and was being interrogated by some kind of madman. For a life that sounded like it was filled with such controversy, Marcus had no clue what General Lee meant by it. And he had no way to tell this to someone that wanted either answers or to have his head on a platter.

Marcus remained silent for a minute. Lee impatiently tapped his fingers on the table. “We can sit here for as long as necessary, you know,” he assured. “I can clear my entire schedule with just a word. So please, take your time.”

“I woke up in this prison last night after being struck by a guard,” Marcus stammered.

Confusion broke across Lee’s face. “What?”

“He told me to eat the meal he dropped on the floor and after coming to my senses, I returned to sleep. I was awoken this morning by my escort, who gave me a pail of water to clean myself with. I saw my own reflection for the first time. He escorted me to this room, and now I’m talking to you. I know nothing other than the events that transpired in the past 24 hours.”

Lee’s confusion slowly turned into searing anger. “After what I told you, do you honestly think that playing around is going to get anywhere?”

“I have had no idea what my name was until you told me.”

He stood  and pounded the table with a fist. “If you’re going to continue this ruse, you are less clever of a man than I anticipated!”

“Everything I’ve told you is the truth.”

Lee turned away from the table and walked towards the map. Engulfed in rage, he tore it off the wall and threw it on the floor. He stared at the result of his own anger and his breathing began to return to normal.

As if in a moment of realization, his head rose.

“If you truly do have amnesia,” he goaded, “there’s only one way to prove it.”

Lee turned back towards Marcus and reached inside his coat. He drew forth a key attached to a thin leather string. It was large enough to fit into his palm and was covered with intricate patterns and designs. “Do you know what this is?” he asked?

Marcus searched the depths of his mind for some kind of memory, some indicator that would tell him why the key was significant.

There was no return.

“No,” he responded hollowly.

Lee returned the key to his coat pocket. “Then there really is no helping it.”

Marcus lay awake on his cot the entire night. Lee’s words continued to echo through his head and prevented him from sleeping soundly. No matter how hard he tried, he could not retrieve any sort of memory connected to his former life.

“Do you know what this is?” The question plagued his mind as he desperately searched for an answer. The key that Lee held had to be part of the reason Marcus had ended up in his current position, but it failed to unlock any sort of memory. By sunrise, Marcus had pondered over several possible situations that could have brought him to this point. Was he a thief, getting the execution he deserved? Or some kind of military deserter? It seemed that not even his persecutors would satisfy him with a reason.

Morning approached slowly, but eventually the sun appeared on the horizon and light began to fill his cell within the hour. This time, two guards appeared at his cell door to escort him out. He was once again bound at the wrists and led through the stone hallway upstairs. Marcus peered out the window to see a large crowd of people moving down the street, all heading the same direction. At the end of the hallway, he then turned right and navigated through the building until they reached a large pair of oak doors.

The guards opened the doors and fresh air rushed into the building. It was the first sensation of breeze that Marcus could remember. The harsh sunlight caused him to wince and blinded him momentarily. When his vision returned, he saw two large crowds flanking the street, shouting and spitting insults at him. The din they were causing almost prevented him from hearing the guard’s command.

“Get on with it,” he said, forcing the butt of his rifle into Marcus’s back.

Marcus marched slowly down the street, attempting to soak in the sights and sounds. The crowds were restrained by soldiers positioned at intervals along the road. When he looked up, several more armed men in uniform were standing on the rooftops, ready to shoot should something happen. Lee had not been lying. His defenses were excellently plotted out, and should someone attempt to rescue him, gunfire would rain down upon them from multiple directions.

As he slowly approached the gallows at the opposite end of the street, a hooded member of the crowd accidentally dropped a basket filled with vegetables near him. She stepped past the soldier and attempted to gather what she had dropped. The soldier noticed that she had slipped past and attempted to stop her.

She knelt down in the street and started to refill the basket. As Marcus passed by, he observed her. She looked up and made eye contact with Marcus. Her face seemed familiar, as if her warm, brown eyes seemed to stir up a strange feeling inside of him. Her lips formed the words Give the signal when you’re ready.

The guard grabbed her shoulder and forced her back behind the established line. Marcus continued marching until he reached the gallows, where none other than Charles Lee stood, waiting to slip the noose over his neck. They escorted him up the stairs and over the trap door. Lee put a sack over his head and tightened the noose around his neck.

“This all could have been avoided, you know,” he whispered before he stepped away.

“Citizens of New York,” Lee exclaimed, “the day is finally arrived that we put this crazed killer, Marcus Theon, to justice!”

The crowd cheered at his statement. Their thundering voices pierced Marcus’s ear drums.

“This madman is charged with conspiracy to destroy the state, the slaughter of innocents, obstruction of justice, and several counts of property damage as well as disturbance of the peace! Yet he will still not confess to his crimes.”

The crowd booed in unison, creating a low and far carrying tone.

“It is time that we put one of our nation’s worst criminals to justice by ending his pitiful life! May the Creator judge his soul accordingly!”

The crowd cheered once again as Lee stepped of to the side so that they could observe the execution. Marcus stood incredibly still, waiting for his demise to come.

A guard pulled the lever and the ground beneath him gave way. For a second he was in freefall until the noose snapped and his circulation was slowly being cut off.

Is this really how it ends? Marcus thought.

Instantly, a memory returned to him. A signal that he remembered using many times before.

He grasped at the noose and made just enough room for the air to fill his lungs. He let out a quick whistle three times.

The sound of a single gunshot echoed through the air. Marcus fell once again and hit the cobblestone beneath him. He fiddled with the noose and managed to remove it, as well as the sack covering his head. He discovered that the rope used to hang him had been severed and he was now underneath the wooden platform.

He saw through the spaces in the planks in front of him that several guards in the street were being felled by knife-wielding assassins. The hooded stranger he’d made eye contact with was one of them. The guards on the street who were still standing, nonetheless confused, were immediately shot by the same assassins, using flintlocks hidden underneath their cloaks.

A woman screamed and the crowd scattered as soon as the attackers revealed themselves. The soldiers on top of the nearby buildings were preparing to fire, but they too were backstabbed by more mysterious assailants, each positioned perfectly to strike.

All of them fell except for one, who he barely made out to be the blue-eyed guard he had met the day before. He was the only man reloading his weapon, presumably being the one who fired the life-saving shot that severed his rope.

The young woman rushed up to him and helped him to his feet. She removed her hood and long brown hair fell to her shoulders. “Are you alright, sir?” she hurriedly asked.

“I’m fine,” Marcus stammered, “but what’s going on?”

“Rescue operation, sir, Thomas and I formulated it ourselves. We’ve got to hurry.”

“What? Where?”

“No time to explain, reinforcements will be here any second.”

She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards a nearby alley. Several of the assassins followed, while the others scattered in multiple directions. He looked over his shoulder and saw the blue coated soldiers trying to regroup.

“Kill him!!” Lee bellowed in the distance. “I want to see his corpse!”

Marcus attempted to keep up with the young woman. Her footwork was impressive compared to his, nearly tripping over his own feet several times. At the other end of the alley, they reached a horsedrawn cart and several other horses behind it. A line of soldiers formed quickly to prevent their escape.

The young woman let out the triple whistle and more assassins descended upon them from the rooftops, stabbing them on impact. They continued to the cart.

“Hop in,” she urged. “And make sure you cover yourself up.” Without any hesitation, Marcus leaped into the cart and hid underneath the tarp. She mounted a nearby horse and one of their allies climbed onto the one steering the cart. They immediately galloped out of the alleyway and into the street, veering past several pedestrians and soldiers alike.

Marcus poked his head out from underneath the tarp to see them speeding past several buildings. The impromptu caravan of horses careened down the street, forcing people to dodge at a moment’s notice. The assassins shouted at the onlookers to make way. Marcus’s cart nearly crashed into street vendors’ booths many times. He watched as a nearby horse destroyed a tomato stand, nearly taking the merchant with it. A stray vegetable flew at his head, he managed to duck right before it hit him.

He spied a group of soldiers forming a line in the distance. They each carried a rifle and were preparing to shoot. The caravan was quickly approaching them.

“Firing squad ahead!” called out the assassin driving the cart.

The young woman produced a spherical object from underneath her cloak. Marcus noticed a piece of string attached to it and realized it was a bomb. She quickly fiddled with pieces of flint and steel to light the fuse. As her horse began to gallop faster, she managed to keep a steady grip on the explosive.

“Prepare to turn right on my command!” she shouted.

They were nearly upon the firing squad when she tossed the bomb between a nearby soldier’s feet. It exploded into a smokescreen and the entire line broke formation. Those who weren’t caught in the cloud of smoke stumbled off to the side, dazed and confused.

“Now!” she yelled and the entire caravan swerved right, leaving the riflemen in the dust. They gained speed once they hit the straightaway again and resumed dodging townspeople. Soldiers along the edges of the street attempted to draw their weapons and shoot the riders off their mounts, but the assassins were faster, quickly striking them down with pistols and sabers alike.

They repeated the process of turning and avoiding guards in a similar manner several more times before they regrouped with the rest of the assassins. Eventually the cobblestone ended and the dirt paths began as they reached the edge of the city. Once they were at the treeline, the horses scattered and the cart took the widest path its driver could find.

They drove deep into the trees and stopped abruptly once Marcus could no longer see the buildings. Four other horses stopped next to him. One of the riders was the young woman.

She offered her hand to Marcus. “We’re not out of this yet, Captain,” she said. “We’ve established camp not far from here. Once the convoy is farther away from city limits, we should be in the clear.”

“Right,” Marcus stammered as he grabbed her hand and climbed up on to the the horse behind her. Captain? he wondered.

They rode until the bustling of the city was nearly inaudible. An encampment hidden within the trees came into view shortly. Several tents were scattered in the trees and more hooded assassins carried supplies hurriedly. He found it strange that, despite the large number of people, no camp fires were burning in the fire pits.

His companion dismounted as another of their allies approached. He removed his hood and spoke with respect.

“Lieutenant Belova, all members of the attack force have returned. We are currently preparing to embark and return to home base.”

“Good,” she responded. “Give me a damage report.”

“The mission went smoothly. Nearly all of our men have returned and been accounted for with minimal injuries. Gale’s squad has still not arrived. We can only assume the worst.”

“Lee’s men were aiming to kill, that much is true, but Gale brought up the rear. Eventually the patriots knew that their primary target was out of their grasp, so I wager that they’ve taken the squad alive.”

“Are you certain, Lieutenant?”

“They wouldn’t have anyone to question if they didn’t. The patriots may be arrogant, but not stupid. They won a war, after all.”

“What are your orders?”

“Continue with the evacuation procedure. We will deal with today’s issues at a later date.”

He gave a quick “Yes ma’am” and returned to overseeing the evacuation. Lieutenant Belova turned back to Marcus and smiled.

“It’s good to have you back, Captain,” she said. “Everyone at HQ can rest easy now that you’re safe and sound again.” Marcus struggled for a response.

“You… You know who I am, don’t you?” he stammered.

Her expression narrowed in confusion. “Of course I do,” she said, “You’re my captain and superior, Marcus Theon, of the Liberatae Faction. What kind of question is that?”

Marcus scratched the back of his neck. “Because I haven’t exactly known who I am for the past forty-eight hours.” He quickly recounted the events of the last two days. As he told the story, Belova’s expression changed from a happy grin to stern contemplation. When his he concluded his tale, she began to struggle for words.

“Then you truly don’t remember me? Your First Lieutenant, Violet Belova? We’ve been through so much together, I didn’t think it was possible you’d forget me, even with amnesia…”

Marcus stared into her eyes, but couldn’t draw any recognition whatsoever.

“I’m afraid not,” he replied. Though he couldn’t understand why, his words were saturated with a certain sadness. Violet was silent for a moment, attempting to take it all in.

“Then we have a hell of a lot to catch up on,” she said. “Your name is Marcus Theon, and you are the only hope this faction has left.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This work was inspired by the Assassin's Creed universe, although not directly related to it. This idea began as a stand-alone short story, but there are likely more chapters to come. Stay tuned!


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